An airport truck drives under a deserted loading ramp at the Allegiant terminal at Portsmouth International Airport. (Ryan McBride/Staff photographer)

PORTSMOUTH — It could still be another week or so until passenger planes start taking off and landing and travelers start filing in here.

But that didn't stop officials Friday from celebrating the return of commercial flights to the Portsmouth International Airport at Pease.

Allegiant Air, a Las Vegas-based, low-fare airline, was set to launch its first flights from the airport today. The inaugural flight from Pease has instead been delayed for seven to 10 days, and today's flight was reschedule to depart from the Manchester-Boston Regional Airport.

According to Allegiant representatives, the rescheduling was necessitated by a delay in necessary security upgrades to the Portsmouth facility by the Transportation Security Administration — a holdup that officials are blaming on the 16-day partial shutdown of the federal government earlier this month.

“We hope by our Novembr 1 flight that we'll be operating out of Portsmouth,” Allegiant Air spokesperson Jessica Wheeler said Friday morning at a small gathering of state, airport and airline officials at the airport. “The TSA is doing everything they can. They've worked really hard for us.”

Once the TSA upgrades are completed, Allegiant will fly twice a week between Portsmouth and Orlando Sanford International Airport. The planes will hold 166 passengers.

The Portsmouth flights, which were announced in August, are part of a 10-city service expansion for Allegiant. The airline operated flights out of Pease between 2005 and 2007 before ending them.

“Our relationship with Portsmouth goes back quite a while,” said Wheeler. “And over the years, we've grown tremendously.”

When the new Allegiant flights launch from Pease, they will be the first commercial flights out of the airport in five years.

David Mullen, executive director of the Pease Development Authority, said airport officials have been working for the past few years to bring passenger service back to the facility, which primarily services military flights.

“We've been working with Allegiant for the last few years to try to reestablish service,” he said. “We have activity here, but we like to have commercial scheduled flights.”

In an effort to generate interest in its new flights, Allegiant is offering limited one-way fares from Portsmouth to Sanford, Fla., for $71.

reestablish service,” he said.

“We have activity here,” Mullen added, “but we like to have commercial